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Betrayed: Why Reagan Would Be Ashamed of the Neocons

Alzheimer’s robbed Ronald Reagan of his memory. Now Republican
neocons are trying to steal his foreign-policy legacy. A de facto
peacenik who was horrified by the prospect of needless war, Reagan
likely would have been appalled by the aggressive posturing of most
of the Republicans currently seeking the White House.

Ronald Reagan took office at a dangerous time. The Cold War
raged, with the Soviet Union suffering through the Brezhnev era of
stagnant authoritarianism. Moscow’s weaknesses, though eventually
exposed, were not so evident at the time and Washington faced
challenges around the world. Reagan sacrificed much of his
political capital to increase U.S. military outlays. But he barely
utilized the new capabilities that were created.

Reagan’s mantra was “peace through strength.”
Peace was the end, strength the means. He focused his attention on
the Soviet Union and its advanced outposts, especially in the
Western Hemisphere. One could disagree with his specific policies,
but not his characterization of the U.S.S.R. as an “evil
empire.” Moscow had to be contained.

Restraining the hegemonic threat posed by an aggressive,
ideological Soviet Union led to Reagan’s tough policy toward
Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and his
immediate successors. Still, Reagan avoided military
confrontation—there was no attempt at “roll
back,” as it was called during the Cold War. He wanted the
U.S.S.R. to “lose,” but not in a shooting war. Indeed,
he routinely employed what neocons today deride as
“appeasement.”

Reagan wanted to
negotiate from a position of strength, but he wanted to
negotiate.

For instance, during the 1980 campaign, Reagan opposed the
Carter administration’s insistence on an Olympic
boycott—which required acting like the Soviets by threatening
to seize the passports of individual athletes who might be tempted
to travel to Moscow. Reagan also dropped the Carter grain embargo
against Moscow. Reagan recognized the obvious economic and
political benefits of allowing trade; he also explained that he
desired to encourage “meaningful and constructive dialogue.”

Worse from the standpoint of today’s Republican war lobby
was Reagan’s response to the Polish crisis. Lech Walesa and the
Solidarity movement were a global inspiration but the Polish
military, fearing Soviet intervention, imposed martial law in 1981.
Again, Reagan’s response was, well, appeasement. No bombers
flew, no invasion threatened, no soldiers marched. He continued to
contain Moscow and challenge its moral foundation. But like Dwight
Eisenhower in 1953 and 1956 and Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Reagan did
not risk a general war to help liberate Eastern Europeans when they
opposed Soviet troops. Indeed, from Reagan came no military moves,
no aggressive threats, no economic sanctions. Reagan did little
other than wait for the Evil Empire to further deteriorate from
within.

Little other than talk, that is. Reagan wanted to negotiate from
a position of strength, but he wanted to negotiate. And despite his
image as a crazed cowboy and mad Cold Warrior, he negotiated over
arms reduction with … the Soviet Union. For example, he used the
deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles to win the
withdrawal of both nations’ weapons.

Moreover, as my late White House boss, Martin Anderson, and his
wife, Annelise, documented, Reagan was horrified by the prospect of
nuclear war, which drove him to propose creation of missile defense
and abolition of nuclear weapons. Reagan’s concern was
evident early. In their book on foreign-policy, analysts Stefan Halper
and Jonathan Clarke observed: “from 1983 onward, Reagan devoted
more of his foreign policy time to arms control than to any other
subject.” Reagan spoke of peace when he addressed Soviet students
in Moscow in 1988. Norman Podhoretz, the neocon godfather,
denounced Reagan for “appeasement by any other name.”

Reagan was willing to switch rhetoric and policy when
circumstances changed, in this case, the nature of the Soviet
regime. He had no illusions, unlike some observers, that enjoying
jazz made former KGB chief Yuri Andropov, who replaced Brezhnev,
into a closet liberal. In contrast, Reagan understood that Mikhail
Gorbachev was different. A reform Communist, Gorbachev nevertheless
humanized the system and kept the military in its barracks. Reagan
worked with the Soviet leader, despite heartfelt criticism from his
own staffers and fevered denunciations from
activists—dissention that Reagan acknowledged in his diary.
Gorbachev later wrote that Reagan “was looking for
negotiations and cooperation.” Or, in a word, appeasement.

Of course, Reagan was not a pacifist. But he was cautious in
using the military. He usually intervened through proxies to
counter Soviet or allied Communist influence—Nicaragua,
Angola, Afghanistan. It was an important but limited agenda, and
disappeared along with the Cold War.

Reagan used the military in combat only three times, and not to
impose democracy, rebuild failed states or overthrow dictators. The
first instance was Grenada, after murderous Communists ousted their
slightly less hardline colleagues. Reagan defenestrated the new
regime, simultaneously protecting American medical students and
eliminating a nearby Soviet outpost. Most important, when the job
was done, Reagan brought home the U.S. forces and allowed the
locals to produce nutmegs—and govern themselves.

The second case was against Libya in response to evidence that
Tripoli had staged the bombing of a Berlin nightclub favored by
Americans. It was a simple retaliatory strike. There was no
extended bombing, ground invasion or lengthy occupation highlighted
by regime change and nation building. Reagan sent the simple
message to Libya and other governments: do not attack
Americans.

The third, and sadly disastrous, intervention was Lebanon. The
United States had few measurable interests at stake in that tragic
nation’s civil war, but sought to strengthen the nominal
national government—in truth, but one of some twenty-five
armed factions—and support Israel, which had invaded its
northern neighbor. Washington trained the Lebanese military and
allied militias and introduced U.S. combat forces. John H. Kelly of
Rand observed: “In Lebanon it looked very much as if the
United States had taken up arms in behalf of the Christians.”
Indeed, the United States took an active role in the fighting;
officials were forced to admit that heavy naval bombardments
resulted in civilian casualties. Washington’s intervention
triggered attacks on both the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps
barracks.

Reagan recognized that he’d erred. After briefly
emphasizing retaliation, he decided not to double down and
“redeployed” existing troops to naval vessels, which
then sailed home without fanfare. He consciously rejected a policy
of Iraq-lite: invasion, occupation and transformation. We all
should be thankful that he had the courage to back down. Otherwise,
thousands of Americans could have died fighting in another
meaningless Mideast war. More enemies would have been created and
terrorists would have been activated.

Yet neoconservatives denounced him sharply for refusing to
invade and occupy Lebanon. Their criticism continues to this day.
Philip Klein of the American Spectator said the withdrawal
“sent the message to terrorists that they could attack us and
we wouldn’t have the appetite to respond.” Podhoretz
charged Reagan with “having cut and run.” President George W. Bush
argued that Reagan’s withdrawal was one reason terrorists
“concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend
ourselves, and so they attacked us.” Former CIA Director
James Woolsey claimed that Iran and Syria saw America as cowards,
since “[t]hey saw us leave Lebanon after the ’83 Marine
Corps bombing.”

Lebanon was a terrible mistake, but, in contrast to the
perpetual war lobby, Reagan learned from his errors. More
important, Reagan was no global social engineer. He stood on behalf
of individual liberty, but saw America’s role as the famed
“city on a hill.” He advocated increased military
outlays for defense of this country, not international social work.
Even where he acted militarily, he had a narrow objective. He was
willing to adapt his policies to changed circumstances.

It’s presumptuous to claim to know what Reagan would think
today. But the world is a lot different than when he was in office.
He undoubtedly would recognize that the end of the Cold War
terminated the most serious threat against the United States. He
likely would have been horrified at the self-delusion that went
into the disastrous decision to invade Iraq. He probably
wouldn’t be happy with how Washington’s defense policy
has kept rich allies as welfare dependents more than a quarter
century after he left office. An opponent of social engineering at
home, it’s hard to imagine him wasting American lives and
money for more than a dozen years attempting to turn Afghanistan
into a liberal democracy. An advocate of aid to insurgents fighting
outside oppressors, he likely would have recognized the risk that
local insurgents would take up arms against American occupiers. He
certainly would have worried about Washington’s lost
credibility, but likely would have recognized that the answer was
to make fewer foolish promises in the future, rather than to make
good on dumb ones in the past, such as to bomb Syria over its
apparent use of chemical weapons.

Finally, he would be angry at the attempt to use his legacy to
justify a failed foreign policy. When Ronald Reagan left office,
the United States truly stood tall. George W. Bush more than any of
Reagan’s other successors squandered the Reagan legacy. And
the former did so with a recklessly aggressive policy that ran
counter to Ronald Reagan’s far more nuanced approach in a far
more difficult time. In contrast to Reagan, most of today’s
leading Republicans appear to want strength, but not peace.